The United Auto Workers union mentioned on Friday that 97 p.c of its members had voted to authorize strikes towards General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis if the union and corporations had been unable to barter new labor contracts.

The consequence provides the union’s president, Shawn Fain, the ability to inform employees to stroll off the job as soon as the present contracts expire on Sept. 14.

Strike authorization votes are usually formalities that move by vital margins and don’t guarantee strikes. But this vote comes because the newly energized U.A.W. takes a extra assertive stance with automakers, a part of a larger shift in organized labor.

G.M., Ford and Stellantis have posted robust earnings for a couple of decade. That has emboldened Mr. Fain and his members to name for substantial wage will increase, cost-of-living changes, and improved pensions and well being care advantages.

“This is our time to take back what we are owed,” he mentioned on Facebook Live on Friday. “We are united, and we are not afraid,” he added.

Mr. Fain, who was narrowly elected president this 12 months within the union’s first direct election of its prime leaders, seems to have united the union’s members. He appeared at rallies with employees in Detroit on Wednesday and in Louisville, Ky., on Thursday and Friday. About a dozen comparable occasions are deliberate over the subsequent two weeks. Such occasions had been uncommon in contract talks during the last 20 years.

“There’s nervousness, but there’s excitement,” Luigi Gjokaj, a vp at U.A.W. Local 51, mentioned on the Detroit rally. “If the company comes to the table and they’re fair, we’ll have an agreement. If it has to go to a strike, we are prepared.”

Mr. Fain spoke to about 100 employees at that rally from the mattress of a pickup truck simply exterior a Stellantis plant that makes the Jeep Wagoneer, a extremely worthwhile sport utility car.

“We’re not asking to be millionaires,” he mentioned to loud cheers. “We just want our fair share.”

In an announcement after the results of the strike vote was introduced, Ford mentioned it hoped to work with the U.A.W. towards “creative solutions during this time when our dramatically changing industry needs a skilled and competitive work force more than ever.”

This month, Mr. Fain despatched the businesses a listing of calls for, together with the potential of working solely 4 days every week and wage will increase of 40 p.c, noting that the chief executives of G.M., Ford and Stellantis have been awarded greater compensation packages during the last 4 years. New hires at auto vegetation begin at about $16 an hour and over a number of years can work their approach as much as the $32 an hour earned by veteran employees.

G.M., Ford and Stellantis have instructed they may most likely conform to some type of increased wages. In a contemporary indication of how the talks might go, an Ohio battery plant owned collectively by G.M. and LG Energy Solution, a South Korean battery maker, agreed on Thursday to extend the wages of 1,900 U.A.W. employees by 25 p.c on common.

Mr. Fain had repeatedly criticized wages on the plant, which had began at about $16 an hour, as being too low. The plant is roofed by a separate bargaining settlement from the one the union is negotiating for employees in G.M.’s wholly owned vegetation. Wages there’ll now begin at about $20 an hour.

The three producers goal to reduce will increase in labor prices in any new contract as a result of they’re spending tens of billions of {dollars} on a momentous transition to electrical autos. The corporations have instructed that agreeing to all or most of Mr. Fain’s calls for would go away them at a aggressive drawback towards Tesla, the dominant maker of electrical automobiles, and European and Asian automakers that function nonunion vegetation within the United States.

G.M. mentioned in July that it anticipated to earn greater than $9.3 billion this 12 months, about $1 billion greater than a earlier forecast. Stellantis, which is predicated in Amsterdam and owns Chrysler, Jeep, Ram and different auto manufacturers, made 11 billion euros (about $11.9 billion) within the first half of this 12 months, a file. Ford expects earnings earlier than taxes of $11 billion to $12 billion this 12 months. All three corporations make most of their earnings in North America.

“Regardless of what other opinions might be, business profits enable future investments, which support long-term job security and opportunities for all,” mentioned Gerald Johnson, G.M.’s government vp for world manufacturing and sustainability, in a video message to staff final week.

The U.A.W. sometimes names one firm that it’ll give attention to in negotiations and make the goal of a strike if it can not attain an settlement. The union has not finished so up to now, though Mr. Fain has publicly sparred essentially the most with Stellantis.

After Mr. Fain introduced his calls for, Stellantis responded with proposals that may enhance how a lot employees contributed to the price of well being care, scale back the corporate’s contributions to retirement accounts and permit the corporate to shut vegetation quickly with little advance discover.

In a Facebook video, Mr. Fain angrily denounced the Stellantis proposals and tossed a replica in a wastebasket. “That’s where it belongs, the trash, because that’s what it is,” he mentioned.

Stellantis’s chief working officer for North America, Mark Stewart, mentioned in a letter to staff that he was “incredibly disappointed” by Mr. Fain’s remarks. “The theatrics and personal insults will not help us reach an agreement,” Mr. Stewart mentioned.

Tensions between the U.A.W. and Stellantis, which was shaped within the 2021 merger of Fiat Chrysler and Peugeot S.A., have been simmering for the reason that automaker idled a Jeep plant in Illinois. One of Mr. Fain’s key targets is getting the corporate to reopen the manufacturing facility.